ir John Betjeman, Poet Laureate, died in Cornwall at the age of 78, and was buried at St Enodoc's church, Trebetherick. A Commons committee ex- empted from tax a £6,163...

How to fix Jim P erhaps it is something to do with East Anglia. In the summer of 1981, you may remember, Mr James Prior was filmed standing beside his Suffolk tractor and...

T he Head of Advertising Control at the Independent Broadcasting Authority, Mr Harry Theobalds, once achieved fame N these columns for saying, in an offhand way, that the...

Y ears of unmitigated high quality are never as much use for a magazine as a public row about attempts to 'gag' it, so Encounter, the distinguished intellectual monthly, must be...

T he war between Iraq and Iran has P h ase moved into a new and more threatening r ase — raids on neutral shipping. In . th e iirst series of attacks eight ships were hit in a...

O n 3 June the Labour party and New Socialist present 'A Night for a Nuclear free Europe' at Wembley Con- ference Centre. There are several attrac- tions, drawn from many walks...

6 months: £17.25 One year: £34.50 Eire £17.25 E34.50 Surface mailAir mail £20.50 E26.50 L41.00 £53.00 Name.....................................................

Is trifle sufficient? Auberon Waugh ur heroic ages produce poets,' said a Daily Telegraph leader mourning the death of John Betjeman. 'Ours is an unheroic age, so we need...

T he Anglican preferment which the co ntroversial Dean of Peterhouse, Dr Edward Norman, has at long last received will be particularly galling to his enemy, the Ma ster, since...

Teddy Taylor T he last time we had European elections, the basic problem was secur- ing the attention and interest of voters, and the 30 per cent poll was rather lower than we...

C hristopher Hitchens Senator Washington Jesse Helms of North Carolina has been called, in an official 1,11110eratic Party circular to raise funds for 1Is defeat, 'the New...

Campbell Gordon A r John Turner is the man who will IVA almost certainly succeed Mr Pierre Trudeau as Leader of the Liberal Party and Prime Minister of Canada. He has the sup-...

We suppose this Expedition must go to Khartoum. The Government has decided nothing, and can decide nothing, until it has heard from General Gordon what he wants, what his posi-...

Gavin Stamp I cannot now remember why, but when first met John Betjeman we talked about that odd Edwardian Arts and Crafts ar- chitect, E. S. Prior, who had designed some...

Richard Ingrams I suspect that many thousands of people felt like me a sense of personal loss at the news of John Betjeman's death. One could almost hear a collective groan...

Jo Grimond The University Grants Committee in its 1 circular on the 'Development of a strategy for higher education into the 1990s' asked if there is an essential difference in...

Andy, Su and the chimps Paul Johnson T here is a theory in Fleet Street that within a few years all the nationals with the possible exception of the two Telegraphs — will be...

Shades of Arthur Scargill Jock Bruce-Gardyne fl f course there are inevitable It is a moot point whether our Chancellor has cause to share the general gloom. 'Disruption in...

Sir: Howard Zelling (Letters, 12 May) confirms that only one per cent of South Australians is capable of much more than watching grass grow. It is of course nice to know that it...

Beating the system Sir: Charles Moore (Politics, 19 May) errs by i nadvertence when he writes: 'Every child must go to school.' Certainly, every child must be educated, but the...

Sir: Gavin Stamp's tirade against the Mies van der Rohe office tower in the City of London ('A monument to the dead', 12 May) was delivered with his customary elegance and...

Sir: Alan Watkins (Diary, 19 May) may owe the term 'Young Fogey' to Mr Terence Kilmartin, but it has quite a long history. So far as one can make out it was coined by John Wain...

12 .Mr Waugh's allegation (Another voice, IS May) that Merseysiders smell is puzzling. he serious? But surely he must realise that smelly bodies are no commoner here than in...

S ir: Months before I saw the Scargill salute c ommercial television this evening, I had en meaning to ask whether it would be ben to mount a film of clips of Adolf Hitler...

Sir: Apropos of Charles Mosley's accusation (Letters, 21 April) that Christianity 'transmuted the golden Latin of Cicero into the dross of the Vulgate', it is known that St...

Sir: Alan Watkins is I think confused. His `intolerant' American who ran round the bar at Sadler's Wells shouting 'f...ing fags' (Diary, 19 May) was surely not referring to...

Within our sausage-skins Colin Welch A few weeks ago it was my 60th birth - day. I sauntered past the milestone, kicking up the dust, eyes averted, whistling with assumed...

The nimble recorder Richard Shone James Tissot Michael Wentworth (Oxford £50) J ames Tissot, rich, famous and housed in n St John's Wood in considerable com- !ea , Was one...

Gavin Stamp Sir John Soane, Architect Dorothy Stroud (Faber & Faber £32) O ne of several gloomy events of this 'Festival of Architecture' year will be the retirement of Sir...

We announce a Grand Scottish Poetry Competition. Messrs John Walker and Sons Ltd, the noted distillers, have with great generosity offered to donate the prizes. It will...

Marc Jordan Art of the Nineteenth Century: Painting and Sculpture Robert Rosenblum and H. W. Janson (Thames and Hudson £25) Romanticism and Realism: The Mythology of...

J.G.Links Ruskin and St Mark's John Unrau (Thames and Hudson £12.50) A fter we left home today we ra.went to St Mark's where we found John near the High Altar stretched all...

Michael Buhler Conran and the Habitat story Barry Phillips (Weidenfeld £9.95) B Y page 109 I was deeply immersed in the problems of Mothercare, a chain of baby-clothes shops...

Peter Aar oyd Tributes E. H. Gombrich (Phaidon £17.50) I t may be either brave or foolhardy of Professor Gombrich to devote this volume to 'the interpreters of our cultural...

E xhibition catalogues are the major -Li showcase nowadays for research and new discoveries in art history. This makes many of them unreadable for the non- specialist (and the...

Rodney MI Ines T he big news is of course from Edinburgh, in the form of a cloud at Present little larger than a clenched fist but heavy with portent for the future. Predic-...

Critical Peter Phillips T he Glory of the Garden is the slightly recently published adumbration of its ambiguous title of the Arts Council's forthcoming policies. It is in...

Granny-bashing Giles Auty Summer Exhibition 1984 (Royal Academy till 19 August) Bernard Dunstan (Agnew till 1 June) Alan Lambirth (Odette Gilbert till 1 June) Alan Lowndes...

Off-beat David Wakefield The Watercolour Collection Formed by Mrs Cecil Keith (Agnew till 25 May) T he Alan Jacobs Gallery (8 Duke Street, SW1) displays a collection of Dutch...

Reflections Henry Elwell T he summer season at Christie's an d _ Sotheby's is made particularly to • teresting by works from three very differen t kinds of collections: Gould,...

Dangerman Giles Gordon Pygmalion (Theatre of Comedy: Shaftesbury) West Side Story (Her Majesty's) Antigone (National: Cottesloe) Black Ball Game (Lyric, Hammersmith) P eter...

Tex-Mex Peter Ackroyd Gregorio Cortez (' Is', Electric Screen, Portobello Road) T his film has been adapted from a book with the exciting title With His Pistol in His Hand,...

Big business Alexander Chancellor I remember one of the shareholders in TV-am telling me how pleased he was that Mr Greg Dyke had been appointed its editor. This was after the...

Jeremy Jeffrey Bernard Y et another friend has died and I feel as much angry as sad at what seems like a monstrous injustice. Jeremy Madden- Simpson — christened by Eva whose...

Friend in need Taki T he last time my friend Charles Benson was rich enough to have me to dinner was exactly ten years ago. For anyone unfamiliar with Lord Whelks's premier...

Near pavilion P- J. Kavanagh S ir Leonard Hutton reveals that he played several matches at Lord's before he was invited into the pavilion. The profes- sionals changed in a...

Jaspistos reports. - Competitors were asked for an extract from an essay on 54. 5 ' Shoes, Sealing-wax, Cabbages or Kings In the style of either Chesterton or Belloc. 'A man...

THE FLORA OF BERKSHIRE by H. J. M. Bowen (Holywell Press 1968) and 'The Pyrenees' by H. Belloc. Mrs Jebb, Beenham Hatch, Bucklebury, Berks. LONG WHITE MOUNTAIN by H. E. M....

No.1322: Difficult dozen Set by Jaspistos: Your are invited to incor- porate the following words, in any order , 111 a plausible piece of prose (maximum 150 words): dromedary,...

Title prospects David Goodman A fter the last round of the Phillips and Drew/GLC Tournament, I spoke with Karpov about, among other things, his forthcoming world championship...

F unny — hear, hear! by Doc Prize: LIO — or a copy of Chambers Dictionary, 1983 edition (ring word 'Dictionary' under name and address) — for the first correct wo _orrect...

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Spectator Wine Club Auberon Waugh I Thad thought to con fi ne myself entirely to Portuguese offer this time, since the Portuguese, in their unobtrusive way, offer some...

Recount Wine 44 Lower Sloane Street, London SW1 Telephone 01-730 6377 PROUD CT PRICE NO. OF VALUE CASES 1. Bucellas Velho 1979 (white) 12 bots. £37.08 2. Dao Dom Ferraz Reserva...